Silk and Felt: Stone over Stone
by GlaceFantasy
Summary: In another universe, another Doctor travels from place to place, hoping to find proof of his notion, that time might be distorted since the abrupt end of a great war. His artistic curiosity leads to Clearcliff, where mysterious events recently occurred, which tie together with a dark trace, picked up by an old acquaintance. Rated M for violence and gore.


_For confused readers: This story or set of stories is basically the off-screen adventures of an alternate-universe-version of the Doctor._

_It is destinated in an own, western-fantasy universe with it's own lore._

_Thanks go to hahalolsmileyface for betareading it and making severe and necessary corrections. He really improved the wording in many places._

* * *

When he left the inn, he was a bit tipsy, but he could walk straightforward. He wasn't sure how long it had been since sunset, but at least he believed the sun had stooped past the horizon some time ago, and yet, there was no sign of trouble. No traders with their marginal gadgets or other travellers bothering the village with their strange shenanigans. And another day had gone by without the tenant's goons barging in and sweeping off everything their little village could make from their crops. Ferrin gave the stone guardians, who were standing firmly on their solid pedestals on each side of the road, a look of gratitude.

They really were in favour of the spirits the statues represented. He always wondered, how their village mason could afford to make all of them, but since the Massyners had been masons for so many generations, he guessed they were just unused creative energy invested by old Rick. Most of them looked just like the guards over in town, but a lot of them had an individual design. They had different clothing, different armor, custom weapons although some guards didn't even have a weapon - just a scroll or a flute.

But before he turned around to walk down the road to his house, he heard a clicking noise. Maybe even a snap. It came from the stables right at the entrance of the village. Upon spurting past the stables, he noticed the horses were in unrest. He felt like dealing with that later though. What intrigued him more, was who could cause such noise at this time of night.

He grabbed the torch from beside the stable, lit it and followed the sound outside, but there was nothing there. Just the trees of the apple orchard waving its arms slightly in the wind. The creaking seemed to have come from the branches fighting against the wind. For a moment, he thought he had seen some dark fluid on the floor. It's not like he was sober either so it might have been his mind playing tricks on him. 'Reading too many of these books', he had. He really should slow it down and listen to good old Jakkan's advice.

The noise did seem a lot louder than the wind suggested it to be though. It rendered him curious. Were the trees too dry? It had been a pretty dry week, but he could have sworn they hadn't forgotten to water them. As he moved closer to the front tree, he felt his unease growing. His breathing was coming in slightly shorter pants and he felt a bit fidgety. If he didn't know any better, he would have said his survival instincts were kicking in. But for what? The harmless apple tree?

As he moved closer to the tree, the snapping got louder, and he noticed it didn't come from the branches, but from behind the trunk of the tree. There was more of the black fluid casting itself out far enough to even see it from the other side of the tree. And when he passed it, he saw what it came from.

On the ground lay the mutilated body of Cheryl Massyner. She was the youngest daughter of old Rick, the village mason. Ferrin remembered that he had been trying to get closer to the girl in hopes of being more than just friends. And this dream lay before him, shattered in the form of the girl before him.

He tried to keep it together but he couldn't help but scream as he saw the foot of Saint Michael, the general and war hero from the days when the dark hordes were overrunning these lands, had pressed itself so far into her back that his foot seemed to have carved itself a path straight through her body, the entirety of his foot was buried from her back all the way to her chest. And that was not the only point on her body in which Saint Michael seemed to have left a hole. The tears, grotesque squashes and breaks were everywhere, leaving only an abstract mess of a husk on the ground. Her face had been left undamaged and unharmed, her mouth gaping open, her face frozen in an expression of pure terror. He almost threw up, that face already haunting his mind as he could still see her begging for help.

He looked up to Saint Michael's angry face. It was wrong. He was a statue and his face was never angry. At least it wasn't supposed to be as far as he knew. When standing on it's pedestal, like it was supposed to, the statue never looked angry. It was carved to look up to the sky in it's elevated and proud fashion, but here it was, not on it's pedestal, but what one day might have become his wife. The guardian wasn't moving, but it was without a doubt, directly looking him in the eyes with gritted teeth and a stiff nose.

Ferrin panicked. He wasn't thinking clearly and he didn't know what to do, but once he turned his back to Saint Michael, he heard the very noise, which lured him there, again. It wasn't the tree's branches, or the broken bones of this once beautiful girl. It was stone shifting over stone, and he could clearly hear it now. He ran as fast as he could, even dropping the lantern on the way back into the village. He ran and ran and ran, not looking back just knowing he had to run away. Nothing seemed to have followed him and for a second he stopped, catching his breath, thinking he had run fast and far enough until a cold hand, hard like stone grasped his neck, leaving Ferrin terrified in his last moment.


End file.
